Squirreling our nuts!

After they were sure, that I could learn and read from any written, or spoken language, I was allowed free rein of the library, except of course the scrolls section. I brushed up on magical history, and other accounts and instances of magical history, which helped me to learn the origin of various spells, and their original intended purpose.

I even asked for a copy of the Book of Law for all the countries which were a member of the ICW and especially those which were not.

I wanted to travel the world, and I wanted to know the magical laws and rules to prevent a grievous faux pas.

I wanted to have an excuse to be trained in Close Combat, and I had my grandparents hire a few instructors from army, Special Forces and even from local Law enforcement.

I was dubbed a combat genius, due to my effective progress at the hands of all my teachers, and I even began to read up on the Officer School Manuals which my grandfather offered one summer.

It was 1976 when I was five years old, and knowing the shift that will soon occur, I told my parents to move all their assets to Italy for the next few years. My parents questioned my motive, but having no real reason to oppose, they gave in.

I was treated as an adult, despite being a child, and my genius status reaffirmed by my teachers and instructors made them believe me all the more. I knew my father was also in Slytherin, and if both of my parents were in Slytherin, had ample money to boot, and yet unnamed in the cannon, it meant they were either AU, or dead at the hands of the Dark Wank-a-lot. Neither being a reassuring situation.

With magic, shifting our movable assets to Italy was merely a day's worth of work, and the land was kept habitable and cared for, while warding the lands unplottable. I knew the shift in paradigm that is to occur as soon as the War begins, so I told my father to contact his parents and have them move with us too.

It was a chore to convince my paternal grandparents to agree as they were rigid and orthodox in beliefs. I saw the rising discontent in Britain amongst the Purebloods, and knew the war would be upon us any day now. As an old family, we had ample assets in Gringotts Vault, but we also had our nuts buried in other places for the winter.

But, at my behest, all our assets were withdrawn, moved from Britain, and all our unnecessary and unused properties charmed unplottable. We also had a lot of controlling interests in various magical businesses, which I made sure were profitable ones, but did nothing to interfere with, as I didn't think my parents trusted my opinions about managing businesses.

After secluding ourselves from the warfront, I was immersed in my training. As the memories I inherited helped to strengthen my body as much as I could while being a child, I began to work around the various loopholes I found in the equivalent book of Law for the magical side.

My father, I learnt, was an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, but he used a Hitwizard License as an alias for the job. I learnt that he had been sworn in, from discussing his projects at the Department, even from his family, and therefore, apart from the little hints, my father could not tell me what he worked on.

But that job, for him, was merely as a hobby, as he had no need to work his entire life. My mother, on the other hand, was an actual Hitwizard, and worked professionally until I was born. She was quite a star in the profession, and apparently that is how she met my father, on the job!

I knew asking for wands and spells was immaterial, when I could simply use the smartphone. I wanted to wait till I had time, before trying my first spell. There was no hurry to grow dependent on spell casting, as accumulation of knowledge and information was equally important.

I knew what I wanted to do, and simply lacked time, at least from my parent's perspective. My father had brought over, therefore, a Timeturner, which he wanted me use judiciously and very carefully, and never without an adult involved in the time loop.

Most of the time, as per my parent's wishes, I used the extra ten hours I acquired, by simply sleeping for the entire duration. That prevented an unintended consequence of time travel, and always gave me time to relax and rest after spending nearly eighteen to twenty hours daily studying and reading.

I was a growing boy, and the long hours of sleep worked wonders on my progress, and every morning, I would wind the hourglass to ten hours and go back to the night. I would then write a note on the slate on my bedroom door, 'Everything is okay! Sleep'. This worked to help me relax and not be paranoid for the night.

I always changed the message, and I used a cypher text code, which only I knew, as it was in Sumerian.

This allowed me to sleep peacefully for the night for the next nine and a half hours.

After waking up, I would freshen up, and go out to the place, where I last used the Time Turner.

This allowed me to have more hours to work with, more hours to sleep, more hours to prepare, and an excuse to be paranoid for the night.

It was 1978, when we were in the courtyard. I was reading on the African rituals which sacrifice animals to imbue ourselves with a trait of the animal. It even could be performed multiple times, and it was banned in the African countries towards the south, where Ugadou is situated. But towards the Central Africa, these ritual practises are still prevalent.

I was deep in my studies, when I saw the atmosphere turned colder. Not temperature wise, but in severity. I saw my grandfather look at my father who had a serious look on his face.

He said only one thing, "The Dark Families have risen under a Dark Lord."